Oriental Garden

Address: 14 Elizabeth St, New York, NY

Phone: 212-619-0085

Today a bunch of us Malaysian went to have Dim Sum at Oriental Garden on Elizabeth and Canal. It was amazing how much food we ate and how quickly we consumed all those dim sums!! It's obvious that we were the most rowdy bunch there, but since we were ordering so much food and since the managers knew our friend Nina really well, we got special treatment (and extra chili sauce! Ha!). This is officially one of my favorite Dim Sum places in NYC. Expect to wait in line especially on the weekends. Gan: Dim Sum is one of the most recognizable chinese cantonese dish. It translate as "touch of the heart". As with many Chinese dishes, you can always find a story behind every chinese dish origin. The one for dim sum is one of my favorite. One of the past king of China's wives used this little snacks to win the heart of the King and stole his attention away from the other wives. The moral of the story? Not only can you get the chicks, you get food to go with it as well! Lol.

In America, the better dim sum are usually found in the west coast due to what I think is a higher concentration of Cantonese immigrants (from HK) there. NYC's chinese immigrants are usually from other regions of China. That's probably why the dim sum is usually not as good as in some other west coast cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles or Vancouver. Oriental Garden is definitely one of the better ones in the city. According to Nina, she had yet to find any dim sum restaurant, on both side of the coast that serves better dim sum. I agree!

"Chong Fun with Yao Tui"

Gan: Darling, err.. isn't it yao tiu? Why don't you just call it Char Liong?

Assorted Dim Sums

Gan: Bean curd with some meat fillings and sauce. I love this.

Tea + Dim Sums

Gan: Dim sum dishes are usually quite greasy. Tea is a good way to wash them all down.

Egg Tarts

The yaokuis - seriously, that's all Malaysians do, eat!

Gan: Troublemakers lah!

Look at how many dim sums we ordered?! We were not even done yet!!

Gan: This was just during the first 15 minutes of the meal. Each circle represents a dim sum basket/steamer.